


Fear is Love's Dark Sister

by Lborealis



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Angst, Character Meta, F/M, Fear, Love, Season 3, internal moment
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-26
Updated: 2019-07-26
Packaged: 2020-07-20 01:03:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 563
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19983478
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lborealis/pseuds/Lborealis
Summary: After so many months of having her back in his life, Mike reflects on what El deserves.A teeny tiny ficlet highlighting what leads to an important moment in ST3 Ep 6.





	Fear is Love's Dark Sister

In those first days that he found her in 1983, it was all that Mike could think about. The power that she possessed had run shocked laps through his mind, causing him wide-eyed heady amazement. It had left an indelible mark on him. He had somehow known, despite his lack of years, that she was unlike anyone other person that he was going to meet in his life. She was different. _Better._ She was a peek outside of his small midwestern town. She was an interruption in his otherwise predictable life. She was larger than life in so many ways that felt like explosions in his brain. 

Yet now, as Mike sat helpless in the living room waiting for her to complete yet another dangerous search, it wasn’t amazement that he felt when he thought about her power. 

_ …It was fear.  _

Hot prickling fear. It made him limbs twitch. It made his heart palpitate and his palms sweat. It made terrifying thoughts spin through his mind. He tried to fight them away, but they came all the same. El, falling to the ground. El, red blood streaming from her nose that would not stop. El, her body going slack and her eyes losing focus.

El… disappearing into thin air… _again_.

It killed him. It ripped at his chest and made him want to scream. Because El? El deserved better than this.

She deserved better than feeling like a necessary weapon. She deserved to breathe easy without having the world so firmly placed upon her shoulders, forcing her to fight. She deserved better than any of the pain and struggle that her powers had brought upon her.

Mike knew this. He knew this so well. He knew this because now? After so many months of having her back? He knew _her_.

He knew what she looked like when she laughed, bursting with color and light. He knew the exact shape her eyes took when she was delightfully surprised. He knew her sense of humor, dry and flat, with a delivery made even more funny by her increasingly growing yet still limited vocabulary. He knew what it felt like to have her curl into his embrace, and the touch of her fingers on his face. He knew her hopes, dreams, and fears.

He _knew_ her. He knew that El, every single one of her ‘special powers’ aside, was the most amazing person that he had ever met in his life.

And that amazing girl was off on another dimension, dangerously weaving between the threads of time and space in search of something that was so much more evil than her pure heart ever deserved to touch.

And he couldn’t help but wonder: would she ever get to just… be? Was there ever a world where she was going to be be able to just be the beautiful girl with the frizzy hair and the crooked smile? The girl full of sharp tenacity and fierce curiosity? Was there ever a world where her life wasn’t confused by a massive darkness that she so deeply didn’t deserve?

Mike cursed himself for being normal. He cursed himself for the fact that he had to sit helplessly on this couch, because if he had any power at all… he would free her from all of this in a heartbeat. 

Because he loved her. And he couldn’t lose her again.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading this little baby fic that I just had to get off my chest. I so deeply identified with Mike this season. His terror in seeing the girl he loves willingly putting herself in danger, and his helplessness in wanting to keep her safe. It just... it hit me so deep because I am SO that person. I get it. 
> 
> If you want more from me, I have tons of Mileven written over on my AO3 library, and I'm usually waxing poetic about these two on tumblr at @el-borealis or Instagram at @el_borealis. Come join me! Would love to hear from you below!


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